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On phoronix I always see "zomg, $magicfeaturebuzzword is still not implemented while the next-next-next-generation hardware is out". I don't even know what a "Stippled Primitive" or "Tessellation Shader Stages" or "Piglit spec/glsl-1.20/execution/variable-indexing/fs-temp-array-mat4-index-col-row-rd hangs" are; 99% of CG is just technobabble + magic from beyond my universe, though I am a computer scientist but I majored in a very different field. I have a deep understanding of operating systems though, but the VGA card is just the thingy that draws pictures if you need them.

Could you recommend a book or summary paper that explains all the techniques (aka technobabble) and how everything works together without programming examples and only essential math details? I do not intend to become a developer, I just want to understand what everyone is talking about, this is why I want the book to spare me the practical details.

By the way: With three developers or so this will obviously need forever. But even if you are a programmer you cannot do the job, because you need knowledge in computer graphics. On my university there are at least three master lectures about that (maybe more) and one chair dedicated to only that topic (and other ones for embedded devices, hardware stuff, operating systems), so people with proper knowledge will be very rare, because they need knowledge in all these fields. But even when someone has this knowledge, this does not mean that they will ever be involved in driver developing: I would not do it, because I would do research with a graduation like that; maybe if you are bored enough (haha) you could do it as a hobby.

So we have no other option but to be patient and should never buy the latest cards on the market, but 5+ year old ones. Just buy a game console and use the Linux PCs for work and basic multimedia (which saves energy and money because a 50 bucks fanless card has enough power for that). It is very simple ;-)